Analysis of Politics, Philosophy and Economics from a Marxist Perspective

Wednesday, 4 May 2016

Friends

Today's
Prime Minister's Questions was even more surreal than normal.
Tomorrow, there are local government and regional elections taking
place, as well as elections for Police Commissioners, and two
parliamentary by-elections. Jeremy Corbyn, therefore, quite
reasonably, asked questions on the topics that the vast majority of
people are concerned with, in relation to their jobs, the health
service, social care, education and so on, all of which are under
attack from the Tories. But, David Cameron, showing his total
disregard for the concerns of ordinary people, not only answered none
of the questions – which has become quite common for him over the
last six years – but did not even make an attempt to be seen to be
answering the questions, instead going into an irrelevant rant over
supposed anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.

It shows
just how out of touch with the real world, and the concerns of
ordinary people, that Westminster bubble has become. But, what was
also apparent is just how hypocritical the Tories, and also for that
matter, the Blair-rights are. The real nature of the almost entirely
confected furore over anti-Semitism, has been shown in recent days by
the exposure of the Blair-right plans for using it as the pretext for
launching a palace coup. But, it has also been apparent in the way
the Tories have used it for their own short term purposes. The
Blair-rights do not even seem to recognise how they have opened the
door to the Tories, with their willingness to engage in political
opportunism, for sectarian advantage, in relation to the issue.

The
Blair-rights, in blowing up this storm of moral indignation, created
an open door for the Tories, not just to attack Corbyn, but to attack
Saddiq Khan. The Tories, who have been running a vicious smear
campaign, against the Blair-right Khan, for his sharing of platforms
with some pretty unsavoury characters, who have said some pretty
unsavoury things, were only too glad to pick up all of the links to
supposed anti-Semitism in the party. And to tell the truth, on the
basis of the charges made against Khan, for the off the cuff comments
he has made, in response to criticism of some of those unsavoury
elements, if he were being treated on the same basis as some of those
other councillors who have been suspended, he would now be finding
himself also suspended.

That is not
a suggestion that Khan should be suspended, but a suggestion that
suspending people on the basis of guilt by association, and in
response to pressure from the media is not a good idea. For one
thing, once that media and your opponents smell blood, it only
encourages their thirst for more of it. The Blair-rights seem
unconcerned about that, and willing to sacrifice one of their own, in
Khan, as a means to their sectarian end of dislodging Corbyn.

The fact, is
that Khan, Corbyn, Livingstone and many others in the LP have shared
platforms with some pretty unsavoury characters in the past. All of
them have been no friends of the working-class. That is what comes
from the mindset of “idiot anti-imperialism”, of seeing all
opponents of imperialism as somehow in our “class camp”, no
matter how reactionary, and indeed barbaric some of those people and
forces might be.

But, of
course, its not only members of the left that associate with these
people. The only or main difference is that those on the left
associate with them whilst they are still pariahs, whilst other
bourgeois politicians associate with them only when they are
themselves part of the establishment. Churchill, for example,
suggested that the best response to Gandhi was to round up a few
hundred of his supporters and shoot them. That was before Gandhi
became an icon for the British establishment, who then made films
about what a great man he was.

Churchill
himself was a well known anti- Semite, whose views on Jews differed
only be degree from those of the Nazis. He was not interested in
fighting the Nazis for the benefit of Jews, whose fate in Germany he
was well aware of during the 1930's, but only in the interests of
British capital. In fact, leading Tories, at the time, were quite
happy to share a platform with the Nazis, and Mussolini's fascists.
They saw them as a useful means of fighting communists. The Daily
Mail and other Tory rags continually ran stories praising the Nazis
and Mussolini. And many of those same views have carried through
into the modern Tory party, which is what makes it rather rich for
them, today, to be standing up and talking about anti-Semitism in the
Labour Party.

Go back a
few years, and people like Corbyn were being criticised for standing
on platforms with the terrorists of the IRA, like Gerry Adams and
Martin McGuiness. Now, for me, I would not touch any such
politicians with a barge pole, because like Hamas, or Hizbollah,
these are not socialists seeking a socialist transformation of
society, but are reactionary, petit-bourgeois nationalists, and no
friend of the working class. But, it is rather rich for either the
Blair-rights or the Tories to attack Corbyn and others for such
associations when today they too stand shoulder to shoulder with Adams
and McGuiness! And, of course, in the past the same could have been said of prominent Israeli politicians such as Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who was a former leader of the Zionist terrorist group known as the Stern Gang.

The Stern Gang carried out many terrorist acts against the British in Palestine. Its aim was to push the British out of Palestine by force, and to that extent as Wikipedia states, it

"... initially sought an alliance with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, offering to fight alongside them against the British in return for the transfer of all Jews from Nazi-occupied Europe to Palestine. Believing that Nazi Germany was a lesser enemy of the Jews than Britain, Lehi twice attempted to form an alliance with the Nazis. During World War II it declared that it would establish a Jewish state based upon "nationalist and totalitarian principles". After Stern's death in 1942, the new leadership of Lehi began to move it towards support for Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. In 1944 Lehi officially declared its support for National Bolshevism."

Former Israeli prime Minister, Menachem Begin, was also a former terrorist, who took part in atatcks on the british in Palestine. But, when all these terrorists and ne'er do wells become part of the establishment, Tories and right-wing social democrats are quick to embrace them, and honour them. Give it time, and some future Tory Prime Minister will be telling us what a wonderful fight for liberation Hizbollah conducted!

The same is
true of Nelson Mandela. Thirty years ago, Tories like Thatcher had
no question that he was a murdering terrorist who no right thinking
person should come near. Again, I would not have made any kind of
alliance with Mandela and the ANC, which was again a petit-bourgeois
nationalist outfit, and no friend of the working-class. The truth of
that has been seen since the end of apartheid, as the ANC, in
government, has continued to attack black workers in much the same way
that the apartheid government did before, and with leading ANC
politicians accumulating massive fortunes, and engaging in the most
grotesque conspicuous consumption.

But, of
course, today, all of the bourgeois politicians have no problem in
proclaiming Mandela the greatest thing since sliced bread, a true
hero and humanitarian, an historic force for peace, and global
treasure.

Cameron's
attacks on Corbyn are the most sickening hypocrisy. Corbyn and
others have placed themselves in this predicament by some of the
company they have kept, but the questions about his comments in
relation to “our friends from Hamas” and so on, were
brought up and dealt with during the Labour leadership campaign.
Corbyn explained the context in which those phrases were used, and it
is only the most swivel eyed Tories who think, or try to pretend, that
Corbyn is in any sense anti-Semitic, or that he supports policies for
the genocide of Israeli Jews at the hands of Hamas or Hizbollah. He
again repeated his opposition to any such idea again today, despite
the fact that it was supposed to be Cameron that was answering the
questions not asking them.

But, what
crass hypocrisy by Cameron, even in that regard. The ideology that
fuels the jihadists in the Middle East stems from Wahhabism. The
fountainhead of that ideology is the Saudi regime. It is the Saudi
regime that finances all of the madrassas around the globe, which
preach the hatred that fuels jihadism, and from which the recruits
for the various jihadi recruits are garnered. It is the Saudi
regime, along with the other medieval feudal monarchies in the gulf
that have financed and armed the jihadis that fought in Iraq, in
Syria and in Libya. It is those same gulf regimes that sent special
forces to fight alongside special forces from Britain, and France to
overthrow the regime of Gaddafi, and they have tried to do the same
with Assad, aided and abbetted by NATO member Turkey.

Turkey has
been a conduit for a stream of jihadis like Jihadi John, coming out
of Britain, France and other European countries, allowed to move
freely by the states in those countries, to go and fight in Syria,
just as they went to fight in Libya. Cameron and co. don't stand
publicly on platforms with such people, who they continually tell us
they are fighting, but the reality is that they, along with their
feudal gulf allies, created those forces to act as mercenaries
fighting in their cause, just as previously they created Bin Laden
and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and they used Bin Laden to create the
KLA in Kosovo.

Cameron read
out a series of reactionary things that some of these Islamists have
said. Yet, even after it had been pointed out to him that one of
those very Islamists was an active Tory Party member, he continued to
refer to his comments! And, if anyone could be bothered to look it
would surely not be hard to find a string of comments by Tory members, past and present, that have said things even more explicitly racist
and anti-Semitic. This is after all the party of Enoch Powell, and
it has been the spawning ground in the past, particularly from the
Federation of Conservative Students of members of the National Front,
the BNP and a range of other fascist parties. It remains the main
source of support for UKIP, both in terms of members and voters.

And, while
Cameron may not stand on platforms with the Islamists fighting his
battles in Syria and Libya, preferring instead to do that vicariously
through the Gulf regimes, he does stand openly and shoulder to
shoulder with the Islamist rulers of those vicious regimes. Cameron
not only has no problem referring to the Saudi kings and princes who
implement as official state policy all of those ideas that he so
vehemently condemned in Parliament, but Cameron provides those
regimes with the weapons, with the police and military training to be
able to carry out those policies of oppression against women,
minorities, homosexuals and so on!

Not only is
Cameron and his Ministers happy to call such tyrants his friends, and
to provide them with weapons and so on, but he is also happy to fete
them, to invite them to rub shoulders and attend the tax payer funded
jamborees hosted occasionally by their British equivalents in the
British Royal Family.

About Me

Left school at 16. Became an ASTMS shop steward at 19, and a lifelong trade union activist. Delegate to North Staffs Trades Council 1974-87. Secretary North Staffs Miners Support Committee 1984-5. President North Staffs Trades Council 1985-6 and 1986-7. Delegate to Staffordshire Association of Trades Councils 1985-7. Delegate West Midlands Regional Council of the TUC 1985-7. Secretary Newcastle UNISON 2000-2.
Member of the International Communist League/Workers Socialist League 1974-87.
Went to University as mature student at age of 24. Obtained Joint Honours Degree in Economics and Politics with Philosophy and Statistics, followed by a Post Graduate Certificate in Education.
Labour Party member since 1974. Stoke City Councillor 1983-4, expelled from Labour group 1983, and resigned from Council in 1984 because of refusing to vote for rent and rate rises, and budget cuts. Staffordshire County Councillor 1997-2005.
Assistant Secretary Stoke District Labour Party 1981, and held pretty much every position from Executive member, to Branch Secretary, and Branch Chair.